Dogfight over puppy-mill bill continues

Friday

Dec 2, 2011 at 12:01 AMDec 2, 2011 at 10:04 AM

Hoping to find common ground in the long debate over legislation aimed at so-called puppy mills, Sen. Cliff Hite convened a unique panel of bill supporters and opponents yesterday to hash out their arguments.

Jim Siegel, The Columbus Dispatch

Hoping to find common ground in the long debate over legislation aimed at so-called puppy mills, Sen. Cliff Hite convened a unique panel of bill supporters and opponents yesterday to hash out their arguments.

Little common ground emerged, which surprised few who have been watching the legislative debate for about six years. Supporters want to protect dogs from abuse and extinguish Ohio’s reputation as having some of the most-lax puppy-mill laws in the nation, while opponents want to stop what they see as overreaching regulations.

“I’m not fed up, but I’m close,” Hite, a Findlay Republican and chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, told the panel before the discussion. “I believe we need to do something. But I want to warn everyone here ... if we can’t come to some common ground to a degree, I’m not willing to advance this bill anymore in hearings.”

More than an hour later, the panel discussion ended with a passionate plea from Kellie DeFrischia, president of the Columbus Dog Connection.

“For goodness’ sake, we license dump-truck drivers in this state. Shouldn’t we be protecting our dogs?” she told the committee.

“I’m a little frustrated with people saying, ‘Let’s come to a consensus.’ You’ve got a consensus — you’ve got the entire state of Ohio that is begging you to do something, and you’ve got two loud groups saying it’s not fair,” she said, asking rhetorically if it’s too much to ask some breeders to build larger cages for their dogs. “Yeah, I’m asking you to build a kennel that’s the size of this desk.”

The session included a number of questions from Republican committee members who either oppose the bill or are skeptical of the attempt to establish new licensing requirements, inspections and regulations of large-volume breeders.

The panelists, who also included Polly Britton of the Ohio Animal Owners Association, Norma Bennett Woolf of the Ohio Valley Dog Owners, and Sue Pohler, a lawyer closely involved in crafting Senate Bill 130, didn’t find much to agree on. But Hite saw enough to continue the talks in private, where he will focus on ensuring that the bill does not harm good breeders.

Changes to the bill are almost certain.

Sponsor Sen. Jim Hughes, R-Columbus, has agreed to remove animal rescues from the bill, and he is willing to place enforcement under a current state agency rather than create a new Kennel Control Authority.

Britton offered amendments, including one that would eliminate the proposed Kennel Control Authority and replace it with inspection programs run by county dog wardens, with twice-a-year inspections by local veterinarians.

“If the Kennel Control Authority is done away with, we feel it is a workable solution,” Britton said.

Linda Lord, president of the Ohio Veterinary Medical Association, said she would have reservations about requiring veterinarians to do inspections while they are trying to run their businesses. Hughes said he wants oversight at the state level so that enforcement doesn’t get diluted by friendly local relationships.

Lord, who testified after the panel session, said the bill makes major strides but has flaws, such as its attempt to strictly define room temperatures and cage sizes.

Sen. Gayle Manning, R-North Ridgeville, said, “I’m still struggling with penalizing people who are doing it correctly.”

Manning said animal-abuse complaints in her county appear to be dealt with properly. “In our county, maybe we value our animals more,” she said. “For some reason, they are taking care of the problem.”

DeFrischia stressed that the bill is focused on breeders who sell more than 60 dogs per year, and “if you’re doing things right, you will never have a problem.”

“The Ohio attorney general’s office actually sends me complaints against breeders because there is nothing they can do,” she said. “People from out of state are complaining about the garbage going on in Ohio.”

Bennett Woolf said she is “absolutely appalled” by the standards in the bill, saying the expense to meet some are unreasonable, and others, such as the limits on dogs in cages without regard for size, are not justified.

“These standards — although some of them are very good, a lot of them will cause breeders to have a great deal of expense,” she said.